The NCTS 5 Final State Rules will be implemented on the 21st of January 2025.
To assist traders, HMRC has issued the following reminder message:
On 21 January 2025, all National Administrations that are members of the Common Transit Convention (CTC) will implement the final version of NCTS Phase 5. These are known as Final State Rules.
To help you prepare for the implementation of Final State Rules we are issuing regular updates. In this update we are summarising all the changes and new functionality that will come into force on 21 January 2025.
You can find all our updates on GOV.UK. Please note it may take up to one week for the newsletter page to be updated.
What’s changing
Final State Rules for NCTS5 will introduce the following changes or new functionality from 21 January 2025:
- Office of Incident – incidents that happen during the goods movement should now be reported in real-time to the nearest customs Office of Incident. Details of the incident will be recorded as they happen by Border Force/Customs Officials, directly into NCTS5, as opposed to the current process of waiting until arrival at the Office of Destination.
- Commodity codes – will be a mandatory requirement for every goods item on the declaration. You will need to enter the first 6-digits (the harmonised system code) of the commodity code into your transit declaration. For Northern Ireland movements you can also add the additional 2-digits (the combined nomenclature code) which is matched against the EU TARIC database.
- New data fields – NCTS5 Final State introduces some new data fields and information will now be mandatory instead of optional (for example, the commodity code field).
- Multiple house consignments – will enable a transit user who uses software to send multiple grouped items with more than one consignor and consignee within the same declaration, such as groupage loads. This new functionality increases the overall goods items in a declaration to 1,999, by using multiple house consignments.
- Pre-lodged amendments – NCTS5 Final State will provide functionality to amend pre-lodged declarations before they are finally accepted, and the Movement Reference Number (MRN) issued.
- Removal of the mandatory requirement to carry a paper Transit Accompanying Document (TAD) – drivers will no longer need to carry the paper TAD as a mandatory requirement. For goods released into Transit by Border Force at an Inland Border Facility or border location, the TAD will no longer be printed unless specifically requested by the driver.
- Electronic presentation of Movement Reference Number (MRN) — this allows for presentation of the MRN by electronic means. At GVMS border locations, this is done by including the Transit MRN in the Goods Movement Reference (GMR).
- Business continuity process/fallback – the Single Administrative Document (SAD/C88) will no longer be used in the fallback process if the system is unavailable. Instead, a blank TAD can be printed (if available) from user software or printed from the Transit Manual Supplement.
For more information, please refer to our specific Transit Newsletters on GOV.UK that provide further details on all the above areas.
What’s next?
Please look out for our next communication which will confirm when NCTS5 Final State Rules are live.
